Die In Eclipse interview: Jana Komaritsa on ‘SexWave’, desire and the body as instrument
Die In Eclipse’s Jana Komaritsa talks to Side-Line about “SexWave,” Darkrad, eroticism as a musical force, and the coming single “We Are Lovers.”
Die In Eclipse, the EBM and darkwave project of Darkrad‘s Jana Komaritsa, spoke to Side-Line about its debut EP “SexWave”, the emotional link between her two projects, and a new single and video, “We Are Lovers,” planned for release this autumn. Komaritsa released “SexWave” on Bandcamp on 6 May 2026, pairing two original tracks with five remixes, and previously discussed her work with Side-Line’s Karo Kratochwil when the project first surfaced under the Die In Eclipse name.
Komaritsa built her name with Darkrad, a dark ambient project she has run since 2009, working through atmosphere, stillness and inward confrontation. Die In Eclipse, she says, is not a departure from that territory but another way of entering it. “I don’t see Die In Eclipse as leaving the introspective space of Darkrad. For me, it is another way of entering a similar space. The difference is in the direction of the energy,” she told Side-Line. “Darkrad often turns into stillness, atmosphere, memory… Die In Eclipse takes some of those same emotions, gives the feeling a pulse and lets the body move through it.”
The name Die In Eclipse and its Darkrad roots
The title is not new. Komaritsa first used “Die in Eclipse” for a two-track Darkrad release in 2014, inspired by time she spent at Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota, which also supplied that release’s cover image. Asked why she revived the phrase for an entirely new project, she pointed to continuity rather than reinvention. “Some names, images and symbols stay with me because they contain something that hasn’t finished unfolding,” she said. “The symbolism of an eclipse has always spoken to me in many ways. I see it not as disappearance, but more as transformation. I don’t need to erase what came before in order to create something new. Die In Eclipse is a new language, but it comes from the same person, the same artistic history and some of the same obsessions.”
SexWave as a musical language of desire
Komaritsa calls her new sound “SexWave,” a term she is careful to root in structure rather than provocation. “For me, eroticism in music and art is mostly about tension and sensuality. It’s not about explicit sounds or imagery,” she explained. “It can be created by the proximity of a voice that feels too close, a breath, a whisper, a rhythm that keeps repeating without giving you the expected release. Repetition is especially important because it can become hypnotic. You begin anticipating what is coming, and that anticipation itself becomes part of the experience.” Restraint matters just as much to her as intensity: “Sometimes holding something back is much more sensual than giving everything immediately. There needs to be space for mystery. ‘SexWave’ isn’t really about making music that sounds sexy in a conventional sense. It is about exploring desire as an artistic and musical force: attraction, tension, anticipation, surrender and release.”
That approach carries over her earlier idea of silence as an instrument, described in Darkrad as “a breath held before release.” With Die In Eclipse built around beats, she says silence takes on a different function. “In Darkrad, silence could feel like emptiness, isolation or void. In Die In Eclipse, silence can be anticipation. When the beat disappears for a moment, the body still feels and knows the pulse,” she said. “Eroticism needs space because desire is partly about what is not there yet. So yes, I think absence can absolutely be erotic.” She also frames the dancefloor itself as a different kind of ritual from her Darkrad shows: “With Die In Eclipse, the rhythm creates a common physical language, where everyone shares the same pulse. You don’t have to understand the music intellectually. Your body understands it. There is something beautiful and powerful about surrendering individual control to a rhythm, not because you are being controlled, but because you choose to surrender to it.”
Introducing a project through its remixes
“SexWave” contains only two original compositions, “SexWave” and “Unholy Dark,” alongside five remixes by Iszoloscope, Antigen Shift, Cervello Elettronico, HORROH and Spherical Disrupted. Komaritsa chose to let other artists reinterpret the material before establishing her own vocabulary in full. “SexWave is a first glimpse, a doorway into the world of Die In Eclipse, which is yet to unfold. The project doesn’t have to explain exactly what it is yet,” she said. “There are only two original tracks on SexWave, which I wanted to give to other artists to see what they could become in somebody else’s hands. A remix, for me, is another interpretation of the same emotional material. Someone can find a completely different rhythm, aggression, darkness or sensuality inside a track that I thought I already understood.”
The remixer list is not a random selection of scene names. Spherical Disrupted had already remixed Darkrad, while Iszoloscope moved in the musical circle around her earlier King in the Thicket project. “My artistic network has always been important to me, and I have worked with some of these people in different contexts over the years, so it was important for me to have them enter my new creative journey in this way,” Komaritsa said. “These relationships carry memory. When someone has known your work for years, they sometimes recognise new things that you might not consciously put there. But I also don’t want Die In Eclipse to be a project built from old relationships. I like the idea of old artistic connections opening doors into something new, and I would like to collaborate further with artists from a similar artistic and musical world. I have already discussed potential collaborations with some great musicians.”
The voice, the gaze and drawing the line between two projects
Komaritsa also hears a shift in how she uses her own voice. Darkrad relied on whispered, restrained vocals that felt distant from the listener; Die In Eclipse pulls the voice closer to the body. “With Darkrad, the voice often feels as though it is emerging from the music and the environment. It can be distant or partially hidden. It is part of the musical tapestry,” she said. “With Die In Eclipse, I want the voice to be more exposed and less hidden behind the sound. The voice isn’t simply describing an emotional state. It can create one.”
As the sole composer, producer and visual creator behind both projects, Komaritsa is deliberate about how she handles female sexuality as subject matter. “I’m very conscious of the difference between creating eroticism and simply reproducing familiar images of female sexuality,” she said, citing Georges Bataille, Sigmund Freud, Anaïs Nin and the Marquis de Sade among her reference points. “Sexuality is complicated and contradictory. It can contain power and vulnerability at the same time, attraction and fear, surrender and control. The ambiguity is much more interesting to me than simply making something provocative.”
Asked how she decides which new material belongs to Darkrad and which belongs to Die In Eclipse, she described an intuitive rather than formal process. “Darkrad can contain rhythm, sexuality and physical intensity, and Die In Eclipse can contain melancholy and darkness. Those elements don’t belong exclusively to one project,” she said. “If the track is driven by atmosphere, emotional depth and a certain cinematic or ritual darkness, it usually starts moving towards Darkrad. If the body becomes the primary instrument, the pulse, repetition, tension and physical movement, I start thinking about Die In Eclipse. They are both part of me.”
What comes next for Die In Eclipse
Komaritsa is already performing a full Die In Eclipse live set and working on album material, while looking for a label to release it. She is keeping some of the project’s direction open by design. “Just as an eclipse gradually obscures one thing while opening a doorway to something else, Die In Eclipse is moving through a similar process. SexWave is a doorway into the world of DIE, a first shout into the darkness, announcing the arrival of this new project,” she said. “I have already been performing live with a complete Die In Eclipse set, so I have enough material to move forward with an album, and I’m working on it behind the scenes. At this point, I would like to find the right label to work with, and developing that takes some time. This autumn, I’ll also be releasing a new single and video, ‘We Are Lovers.’ I want to leave some secrets, to keep that darkness and mystery around it, like an eclipse, and see what emerges from there.”
About Die In Eclipse
Die In Eclipse is the EBM and darkwave project of Jana Komaritsa, a Russian-born, Netherlands-based musician and multidisciplinary visual artist who also runs the WonderCat art space in Leiden. Komaritsa launched her first project, Darkrad, in 2009, building a catalogue in dark ambient and noise around whispered, restrained vocals. Darkrad’s debut album “Abnormal Love” appeared in 2012 on Cold Meat Industry, followed by “Little Black World” in 2014 on Komaritsa’s own Mrakmur imprint and later through audiophob. The same year, she released the two-track “Die in Eclipse,” the title she later revived for her new project. “Heart Murmur” followed in 2018, and in 2022 she paired with Flint Glass for “Cold Solitude,” an art book with an accompanying CD drawn from her own paintings.
Die In Eclipse moves that same artistic identity toward pulse, repetition and the dancefloor, built on dark techno and EBM rather than ambient stillness. Komaritsa premiered the project live at Regenfest in Mülheim in November 2025 and brought it to the Porta Nigra festival in Belgium in January 2026, alongside Nachtmahr, Diary of Dreams, Enzo Kreft and V2A. Its debut EP, “SexWave,” arrived on 6 May 2026 via dieineclipse.bandcamp.com, featuring the tracks “SexWave” and “Unholy Dark” alongside remixes by Iszoloscope, Antigen Shift, Cervello Elettronico, HORROH and Spherical Disrupted. Komaritsa is now working on a full-length album, currently seeking a label, and preparing a new single and video, “We Are Lovers,” for release in autumn 2026.
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Based in WrocΕaw, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.
